Users can enjoy media content purchased on a physical media, such as songs purchased on a CD (compact disc) or a movie purchased on a DVD (digital versatile disc). Users often buy the media content on physical media and have come to expect that they can enjoy the content when they want and as often as they want. Further, users have grown accustomed to the implicit benefits of buying media content on a CD or DVD. For example, a user can lend a movie or CD to a friend, or enjoy the content on whatever device they have that can play and/or display it. A user can play a CD in their home, in their car, or in a portable device simply by moving the CD from one player to another.
More recently, users are able to access media content digitally, such as through subscription and pay-per-view services. These services have benefits, but also disadvantages over buying content on physical media. The advantages include more-flexible ways to pay and use content, such as accessing content for a period of time when subscribing to a service that allows playing a particular song on an MP3 player for a set number of days. A user can also pay to download media content a certain number of times, such as when “buying” a song to have a right to download it to a computer and then record/transfer it to other devices or storage a limited number of times. In another example, a user can order an on-demand movie and pay once to view the movie, such as at home.
Some content distribution services, however, do not permit users to enjoy media content in the ways in which they have grown accustomed. Someone who, in the past, could buy a song on CD and play it on any CD player that she, a family member, or a friend owns, often cannot do so using these services. Media content that is available from a content distribution service is licensed for security and to protect it from unauthorized sharing, copying, and/or distribution of the media content.
Digital rights to restrict the use of media content can be in the form of a license that also requires a security token to be available for the license to be useful. Typically, the digital rights for media content are bound to a security token. However if a security token is lost, or if identities corresponding to the security token change over time, then a license for the digital rights would need to be reissued for a user to play or view media content that they have already “purchased”. In addition, the licenses for the digital rights of media content as stored on a device are bound to that device alone and are not portable with the media content from one playback device to the next.